FOCUS: THE SOUTH - A broad attitude to local issues/Towns in the Home Counties are having to balance increasing business and the benefits it brings, with maintaining local character. Stephanie France reports

There can be few regions of the country as affluent as the Home Counties, yet this prosperity has not come without a price. Many towns, such as Basingstoke, still bear the scars of brutal town planning, while others, like Newbury, have become flashpoints between those who want their town to expand and those who want to save green field sites at all costs.